The Monroe Doctrine Read online

  “Good shooting, Sabo. Keep at it!” shouted his sergeant.

  Boom!

  Another JLTV somewhere behind them exploded. The concussion and heat from the blast washed over Sabo’s back, causing him to flinch.

  Damn, that had to have been a tank. Where the hell is it?

  “Tank to our three o’clock, one thousand meters!” Sabo shouted so the guys below him could hear.

  Swiveling the turret, Sabo emptied the rest of his ammo on the front armor of the tank. He knew the rounds wouldn’t penetrate it. His goal was to rattle the guys inside, and maybe get lucky and damage some of the optics or targeting equipment attached to the turret.

  “I’m out. Pass me another box of ammo,” he shouted to the guys below. “We also need to move—pop the vehicle’s smoke if you can.”

  Sergeant Smith didn’t waste a second. He popped the smoke canisters on the vehicle, shooting half a dozen 30mm smoke grenades in a twenty-meter arc around them. In seconds, they would create a smoke screen to shield them and the rest of the vehicles nearby from the enemy infantry and tanks.

  While all of this was going on, half a dozen machine-gun positions had opened fire on the American column. The soldiers in the JLTVs had dismounted, taking up defensive positions near the highway. Several of the rocket teams had started engaging the enemy tanks and other infantry fighting vehicles nearby. A couple of the JLTVs had been equipped with TOWs—those vehicles were now getting into the action.

  “Look at that!” shouted Sergeant Smith as one of the ChiCom tanks blew apart. The turret of the vehicle had been sheared clean off the tank.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk.

  Their JLTV started getting peppered with bullets from one of the enemy machine-gun crews.

  Sabo couldn’t see jack squat. The smoke had formed a pretty thick cloud at this point. It was giving them cover, but he also couldn’t see where the bullets were coming from. One minute they saw that enemy tank getting blown up, the next they were engulfed in a cloud of smoke.

  “Move the vehicle, I can’t see in this soup!” Sabo yelled down to Private Hancock. Maybe that smoke screen wasn’t such a good idea, he thought.

  The vehicle lurched forward and to the right. A minute later, they were out of the smoke cloud. At least six of their JLTVs had been blown apart. Two of the transport trucks had also been nailed.

  Sabo looked to his right; as he did, he heard several .50-cals open up on something. A group of five M1117 Guardians were charging toward the tree line, firing their Mk 19 40mm grenade guns and their .50-cals at the enemy tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. While the armored cars raced towards the enemy, a handful of antitank guided missiles covered the ground between the American soldiers and the armored vehicles in seconds. A string of explosions rippled across the tree line as six enemy vehicles exploded.

  “Hancock, charge forward. We need to draw off more fire to give our rocket teams time to take the remaining tanks out,” Sergeant Smith directed.

  One of the other soldiers handed Sabo a fresh can of ammo. Sabo lifted the feed tray open and fed the new belt into it. After seating the first round, he pulled the charging handle back to feed the first round into the chamber. He closed the feed tray and proceeded to send a handful of rounds into the nearest enemy vehicle that wasn’t already a smoldering ruin.

  A cannon fired; a Guardian vehicle blew apart. Another cannon fired, and a second M1117 exploded into a giant fireball.

  Sabo was starting to feel like they were going to be next when he heard the air around them splitting apart. His ears registered the loud Bbbbrrrrrppppp of an A-10’s 30mm tank-busting cannon firing.

  Private Hancock slammed on the brakes, throwing Sabo into the Ma Deuce with a hard thud. He was about to yell at him when the ground thirty feet in front of them exploded from a tank round. That round would have plowed into them had Hancock not stopped.

  Looking in the direction of the tree line, Sabo saw multiple trees explode as the 30mm depleted uranium rounds tore through them and into the enemy tanks hiding beneath them. One tank blew up, then a second, then a third.

  As the A-10 flew over the area, several small canisters fell from beneath its wings. The falling bombs then ejected dozens of smaller objects that blanketed the trees in front of them. The entire area erupted in tiny explosions. It was a mesmerizing and almost beautiful sight for Sabo as he watched the entire place erupt in fire.

  Most of the armored cars and JLTVs at this point stopped charging towards the tree line. The gunners laid into the enemy positions, raking them with gunfire while the A-10 circled back around for another pass. The soldiers who had dismounted the vehicles at this point had also caught up to them and fired their own rifles into the enemy positions. It was a free-for-all as the last remnants of the Chinese force charged out of the burning tree line to close the distance with the Americans. It was during this final desperate act that the remaining Americans cut the enemy to pieces. When the smoke cleared a few minutes later, there were only a handful of ChiComs left. They were holding their hands up in surrender or moaning in pain, no doubt crying out for their mothers or a medic.

  Sabo heard a call come in over the radio. Their company—what was left of it—was going to stay and secure the area while the rest of the battalion would press on to seize the port. They also heard a tank platoon and Stryker company had finally caught up to them. They’d lead the way into the city and the port instead of the thinner-skinned JLTVs and M1117 Guardian armored cars.

  Boy, if they had sent those tanks and Strykers with us from the beginning, we probably wouldn’t have just lost half our company, Sabo thought angrily. He cursed as he clenched his fists.

  Chapter Six

  This Ain’t Khe Sanh

  Battalion Landing Team 2/8

  Task Force Khe Sanh

  Gitmo

  Lieutenant Colonel Mike Bonwit ducked into the observation bunker at the sound of incoming mortars. The constant whistling death from above was really grating on his nerves. The barrage lasted nearly forty-five minutes. Bonwit thought the enemy seemed more content with just harassing them with it than trying to go after a specific bunker or portion of his lines. What really made him angry was that there was essentially nothing he could do about it. Counterbattery fire was out of the question. They had so few mortar rounds remaining. What little ammo he had left for his own crews he needed to be held in reserve to beat back the inevitable ground assault that would eventually occur.

  “You think they’re going to attack again soon?” asked the corporal who was in the observation bunker with him.

  Bonwit reached for his field glasses and did a quick scan of the enemy lines to see if he could spot any major troop movements or anything that might indicate the enemy was getting ready to attack their positions. Satisfied with what he saw, he lowered the field glasses and turned to the corporal.

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be right now.”

  The corporal nodded in satisfaction and went back to reading an old paperback book.

  Bonwit had to stifle a laugh. They’d become so accustomed to the bombardments and enemy attacks since the start of the war that if they weren’t in immediate danger, the Marines would just carry on like nothing else was happening.

  Lieutenant Colonel Mike Bonwit’s battalion had landed at Gitmo two weeks ago to reinforce the garrison in case hostilities broke out between the US and the Chinese-Cuban force that had surrounded the base. Prior to his battalion leaving for Cuba, they’d plussed him up with two companies of infantry from the Marine Corps Reserve. The added riflemen pushed his battalion strength up to eleven hundred combat-ready Marines.

  To further reinforce the base, the 1st Battalion of the newly reconstituted 65th Infantry Regiment from the Puerto Rico National Guard had been sent to reinforce his Marines. US Special Operations Command had also seen fit to send him a Special Forces A-Team, a beefed-up Marine Raider Company with five Marine Special Operations Teams or MSOTs, and a platoon of Deep Recon,
Force Recon Marines. The operators had been tasked with finding the Chinese-made HQ-9 radar sites, the CJ-10 TEL trucks, and the DF-17 missile launchers, in addition to being the eyes and ears for his newly formed Task Force Khe Sanh.

  The division commander had told Bonwit the day before he’d left for Cuba that he was essentially being given command of twenty-five hundred gunfighters to hold off the barbarians at the gate. If it came down to a shooting war, he was to hold his position until relieved.

  Since the start of the war, the Chinese had played havoc with their electronic sensors and countermeasures. If they tried to put a drone higher than a hundred feet, it was shot out of the sky. His task force was down to only a handful of them.

  He felt bad leaving his operators out there with no real support—only their own tenacity and violence of action. They had called for danger close fire so many times he considered it a miracle that any of them were still alive. Each time the enemy tried to make an attack on one of his infantry companies, they had been cut to pieces by naval gunfire from a pair of destroyers and a cruiser doing lazy eights just outside of Gitmo. The naval ships were doing their best to intercept enemy aircraft and keep the skies over southeastern Cuba as clear as possible.

  On the western side of the base where his battalion was, his line had continually collapsed to the fence line surrounding the naval air station. The SpecOps guys were beyond that fence line, unleashing hell when the enemy dared to get too close. On the eastern side of Gitmo, he had the Puerto Rican Guard unit backed up with his Force Recon platoon. The two units had been fighting like hell the last few days, beating back several major assaults by the enemy force.

  Ironically, this Guard unit had fought during the Korean War and was credited with the last bayonet charge of that war. In a fierce battle against a Chinese division, they’d led a bayonet charge that had won the day. Since then, they’d been given the nickname “The Borinqueneers” after the original Taíno Indian name for Puerto Rico. Soldiers of that unit had earned ten Distinguished Service Crosses, two hundred and fifty-six Silver Stars and six hundred and six Bronze Stars during the Korean War. They were also one of the few units in the military that spoke fluent Spanish, making them an ideal unit to support operations on Gitmo.

  Major Dave Trout ducked into the observation post and squatted down next to Bonwit. “Sir, here are the numbers you asked for.” Major Trout was his executive officer, a damn fine Marine who’d be given command of a battalion someday if Bonwit had anything to do with it.

  Lieutenant Colonel Bonwit took the report; he looked down at the numbers and grimaced. The casualties just keep coming…

  “We’ve really lost two hundred fifty soldiers, sailors, and Marines in five days?”

  Trout nodded. “And another two hundred and seventy-seven wounded. Speaking of which, we really need to try and get more of them moved to a higher-level trauma center. Those PLA 152mm howitzers hammered the base hospital pretty good during that last barrage two days ago. The docs say we’re critically short on blood, plasma, and other medical supplies.”

  “Dave, reach out to the Navy and see if we can transfer some of our wounded to one of the Burkes off the coast. Maybe they can use their helo to fly them to Haiti or Jamaica once we get them on board and then on to the US.”

  “Before I leave, sir,” said Major Trout, “the sergeant major was looking for you. Should I tell him you’re up here, or are you heading back down to the command post?”

  Bonwit looked at his watch. “I’ll head back with you. I only came up here to do a visual assessment of the lines.”

  “They look like hell if you ask me,” Trout commented as the two of them left the OP and started down the backside of the hill.

  Bonwit laughed. “They do, but they’ll hold.”

  When they walked into the command post, his official headquarters, the battalion sergeant major made a beeline for him.

  “Sir, I need to talk with you in private,” Sergeant Major Joe Savusa stated calmly.

  Bonwit nodded and motioned for the two of them to head outside for a moment.

  Sergeant Major Joe Savusa was a massive mountain of a man, a six-foot-six Samoan. Behind his back, the Marines in the battalion called him Maui because of his island heritage and the fact that he somehow had the same voice as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson from the movie Moana. Savusa was aware of it and had even written Maui on the back of his helmet to let the Marines know that he knew and was cool with it.

  “Damn, Sergeant Major, you take a dust grenade for the battalion?” joked Bonwit good-naturedly. “Shake yourself off before you cover us in a dust storm.”

  Savusa laughed at the comment as he patted some of the dust off himself. “Nah, the bastards tried to bury me during that last barrage. One of them mortars collapsed part of a fighting position I was in. No big deal, I’m still here.”

  Bonwit nodded. “OK, you still good, Sergeant Major?”

  “It happens…,” Savusa said nonchalantly, as if being mortared was akin to being caught in a rainstorm.

  “So, what’s going on, Sergeant Major?”

  “It’s the wounded, sir. I’m sure Major Trout told you, but we need to find a way to get them off the island. Many of these guys will survive, but only if we can get them out of here.”

  Bonwit nodded and told Savusa about his plan to evacuate them.

  Savusa smiled at the news. “That’s a good call, sir. Any word on when we might get a resupply of ammo? We’re dangerously low on mortars and 7.62 ammo.”

  “Still working on that, Sergeant Major. I was thinking when we bring the wounded to the Burkes, maybe we could see about taking all the small-arms ammo they have back with us. I know they don’t have any mortar rounds, but we sure could use all the 7.62 and .50-cal ammo they have.”

  Just then, the radio operator poked his head out the door. “Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Marquez is on the radio for you.”

  Bonwit nodded and headed back in. He grabbed the radio receiver and depressed the talk button.

  “This is Dagger Six. Send it.”

  “Dagger Six, Bayonet Six. Your Force Recon Marines are detecting a lot of movement to our southeast.”

  Bonwit had only known Marquez for a couple of weeks, but he was super impressed with the man. He was cut from the same cloth as his active-duty Marines, a real warrior. If he was calling him direct, then he must have thought it was important.

  When the war had officially started, Bonwit had moved the recon Marines to a specific area he knew the enemy would have to travel through if they were going to launch any sort of major ground operation against the base. They were his trip wire.

  “Copy, Bayonet Six. How are you on mortars?”

  “Running short, but we’ll make do. I’m going to leave it to the platoon commander as to when he wants to pull his team back. I think we’re in for a long night. Bayonet Six, out.”

  Major Trout had been listening to the radio call. “Sir, that’s a weak point in his line,” he commented. “If they hit it hard, they could breach.”

  Bonwit nodded as he walked over to look at one of the map boards they’d hung from the wall. There really wasn’t anything more his unit could do to support them. His companies were already spread thin everywhere.

  Placing his finger on the map, Bonwit announced, “Major Trout, get in touch with MSOT 8211. They had reported movement along the western fence line near the Elbow a handful of hours ago. See if they can deploy one of their microdrones and figure out what kind of movement it is. We need to know if the enemy is moving soldiers or armor into the area. My gut says they’re positioning for a multipronged attack.”

  “On it,” Trout said as he grabbed for the radio receiver.

  *******

  MSOT 8211

  Near Gitmo

  Marine Raider Master Sergeant Donny Stotts was watching the drone feed from his hide site with Team One. They were roughly three hundred meters away from the Cuban militia that was forming outside the elbow indentation alon
g the base perimeter.

  The drone was close; it was perched in a copse of trees overlooking their staging area. From the feed, he could clearly make out at least a platoon of ChiCom Special Forces, who had embedded themselves with the Cubans. Next to Stotts was Staff Sergeant Reyes, who was feeding the grid coordinates into the battle-net targeting system.

  On Stotts’s call, they had waited as the recon elements of the enemy force began to expose themselves near the jungle edge. The ChiComs were using them to see if they could draw the American fire, thus exposing their positions. These poor saps were being used as a throwaway element.

  When they had been visible for a few minutes and hadn’t been lit up by the Marines or the Puerto Ricans, they’d motion the rest of their element forward. Once more time had passed without any naval artillery fire or mortars raining down on them, the entire force would move out of the jungle and towards the American positions.

  The commander of Fox Company, Major AJ Bostic, had changed their tactics for employing their naval artillery support in light of what the ChiComs and Cubans were doing. During the first couple of days, they’d start dropping arty on the enemy as soon as they were detected to scatter them and shake ’em up. It had worked well during the first couple of days. Then the enemy changed their tactics. They wised up and started moving in smaller groups to minimize their casualties.

  When they got closer to the American lines, they’d consolidate for a massive attack and try to overwhelm them with their sheer numbers. It had been a massacre the first two times they’d tried it, but the third time they had nearly busted through the American lines. Had it not been for a danger close artillery strike, the Marines likely would have lost the entire western side of the base two days ago. As it was, the ground was now littered with the dead, bloating bodies of the enemy.